The Death Penalty Information Center has issued a new report, "THE 2% DEATH PENALTY: How a Minority of Counties Produce Most Death Cases at Enormous Costs to All." You can find the full report, executive summary, and news release at the links.
Here is some of the inital news coverage:
"Study: Very small number of counties responsible for most executions," at CBS News.
Only two percent of the counties in the U.S. have executed the majority of death row inmates since 1976, a new study finds.
This disparate use of capital punishment puts a large financial
burden on the overwhelming majority of jurisdictions that do not kill
inmates, because the process of convicting, housing and ultimately
putting to death convicts is incredibly expensive, more so than simply
locking them up for life, according to the study from the Death Penalty Information Center.
In
addition to those inmates put to death, the study states that "only 2
percent of the counties are responsible for the majority of today's
death row population and recent death sentences. To put it another way,
all of the state executions since the death penalty was reinstated stem
from cases in just 15 percent of the counties in the U.S. All of the
3,125 inmates on death row as of January 1, 2013 came from just 20
percent of the counties."
The ABA Journal posts, "A 2 percent death penalty? Capital sentences are concentrated in just a few counties, report says," by Debra Cassens Weiss.
Only 2 percent of the counties in the United States have been
responsible 52 percent of the executions since the death penalty was
reinstated in 1976, according to a new report by the Death Penalty
Information Center.
Similarly, only 2 percent of U.S. counties are responsible for 56 percent of today’s death-row population, the report (PDF) says. Eighty percent of the counties in the U.S. currently have no one on death row.
And:
“Contrary to the assumption that the death penalty is widely
practiced across the country,” the report says, “it is actually the
domain of a small percentage of U.S. counties in a handful of states.”
The top 10 counties among the 2 percent responsible for more than
half of the nation’s death row population are: Los Angeles County,
Calif.; Harris County, Texas; Philadelphia County, Pa.; Maricopa County,
Ariz.; Riverside County, Calif.; Clark County, Nev.; Orange County,
Calif.; Duval County, Fla.; Alameda County, Calif.; and San Diego
County, Calif.
"A Few Counties Drive U.S. Death Penalty System, Report Says, " by Maggie Clark at Stateline.
County prosecutors in 12 states were responsible for the execution of
685 death row inmates, or 52 percent of all executions, since 1976,
according to a new report from the Death Penalty Information Center.
These
prosecutors in 54 counties represent just 2 percent of the nation’s
counties, the report said. The death penalty was reinstated in 1976 by
the U.S. Supreme Court, after ordering states to rewrite their death
penalty statutes to provide more protections from arbitrary or wrongful
convictions.
Texas leads the country in this time period with 505
executions. The counties with the most death penalty convictions are:
Harris County (115 convictions) and Dallas County (50), both in Texas;
Oklahoma County, Oklahoma (38); and Tarrant County (37) and Bexar County
(35), also both in Texas.
Few murder convictions result in a death sentence. There were more than 600,000 murders and non-negligent manslaughter crimes reported between 1976 and 2012, according to the FBI uniform crime report. In that same period, there were 1,320 executions.
"Majority of US executions come from just 2% of counties, report finds," by Ed Pilington at the Guardian.
The arbitrary nature of the death penalty as practiced in the US is
laid bare in a new study that shows that just 2% of counties across the
nation have generated most of the executions in the past 40 years.
A new report
from the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington shows that of
the 1,348 executions that have taken place in the US since the death
penalty restarted in 1976, more than half originated in only 2% of
counties. Under the US judicial system, the decision to launch a capital
case lies with district attorneys at the county level.
Put
another way, 15% of the counties of America have given rise to all the
state executions to be carried out in the modern era. The argument that
has been played out at the highest levels of US jurisprudence, that the
death penalty is administered in a fair and equitable fashion within the
federal system, is belied by the vastly divergent facts on the ground.
The
finding of such unequal distribution – including the fact that all of
the 3,125 inmates currently on death row in America came from just 20%
of the counties – has potentially significant legal consequences. The US supreme court
imposed a ban on the death penalty in 1972 on grounds that it was
practised in an arbitrary and random fashion, and only allowed it to
restart four years later once new guidelines had been issued to jurors.
Several outlets focus on local implications. The Washington Post reports, "Study: Prince William, Fairfax among counties that account for majority of U.S. executions," by Rachel Weiner.
Harris County, Tex., executed 115 inmates, by far the largest total
of any county. Jurisdictions in Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Arizona
had executions numbering in the double digits.
In Northern Virginia, Prince William County had nine death row inmates who were executed, and Fairfax County had five.
Among the most high-profile executions arising from a Prince William case was that of John Allen Muhammad,
who was part of a sniper team that gunned down 10 people in the
Washington area in 2002. Federal authorities chose to prosecute Muhammad
in Prince William in part because of Commonwealth’s Attorney Paul B.
Ebert’s record in capital cases. He has sent more than a dozen people to Virginia’s death row.
Richard
Dieter, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center,
said the study shows that criminals face vastly different odds
depending on where their crimes were committed.
“There’s an
arbitrariness to the death penalty,” he said. “Most of the counties in
Virginia have never had an execution in this modern era.”
"Los Angeles County leads the U.S. in imposing the death penalty," is LA Times coverage by David G. Savage.
Although Texas executes far more prisoners than any other state, Los
Angeles and three other Southern California counties lead the nation in
sentencing convicts to die, according to a report released Wednesday.
Los Angeles County had
228 inmates on death row at the start of the year, more than double that
of second-place Harris County, Texas. Riverside, Orange, San Diego and
San Bernardino counties also ranked in the top 12, as did Alameda and
Sacramento counties. In all, seven of the top 12 were in California.
The data were compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center in
Washington to show how capital punishment is concentrated in relatively
few places in the United States.
"The death penalty is not as
American or as widespread as people might assume. It is clustered in a
few counties," said Richard Dieter, the group's executive director.
Because most criminal cases are prosecuted by county district
attorneys, not state officials, Dieter examined the death penalty data
by county. Some district attorneys regularly seek death sentences, while
others never do, he said.
"Majority of U.S. executions from 2 percent of counties," by Alan Johnson for the Columbus Dispatch.
Just 2 percent of counties in the nation – including Hamilton and Cuyahoga in Ohio – are
responsible for the majority of executions and people on Death Row in the U.S.,
according to a
new report.
Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit
clearinghouse for capital punishment information, said 85 percent of all counties in the U.S. have
had no death sentences since 1976 when the death penalty resumed nationally.
And:
Hamilton County in Ohio is No. 16 on the national list with 10 executions since 1976 and 28
inmates on Death Row as of Jan. 1 this year. Cuyahoga County ranked 29th with seven executions and
23 people under death sentences. Franklin and other large Ohio counties do not appear on the list.
Related posts are in the geographic disparity and report category indexes.